The recent death of Clive Cathcart leaves a gap in our chemical community, especially in our knowledge of environmental issues. Clive was both a gentleman and a gentle man. He was an undergraduate and graduate student in Trinity College and completed his Ph.D. in Queens University, Kingston, Ontario. After a spell in Montpellier, he came back to Ireland and took up employment with Clondalkin Paper Mills as chief chemist. From there, when the mills ran into financial difficulties, he moved to Dublin Corporation as executive chemist.
At the mills, he had to deal with the environmental problems of the industry, and at the Corporation he monitored the performance of industry in environmental issues. It was a case of a somewhat reluctant poacher turning gamekeeper. Environmental problems remained with him. He had found his niche in life. His move to the Federation of Irish Chemical Industries (later to become the Irish Pharmaceutical and Chemical Manufacturers Federation) merely cemented the interest.
He was heavily involved in the preparation of a code of practice on the transport of chemicals by road, which led to driver training and certification, and then to an emergency response scheme. He was the spokesperson for the industry on the Environmental Protection Act. He was a valued member of the dangerous substances committee of the Health and Safety Authority.
He played a prominent role in CEFIC, a pan-European organisation in the field. He was a committee member of the RSC, secretary of the local section of the SCI and a valued member of the National Committee for Chemistry in the Royal Irish Academy.
His interests spilled over into chemical education. He was a prophet in that he realised that a healthy chemical industry here required a healthy education system, and he worked hard to persuade industry of that fact. We academic chemists owe more than can be imagined to his efforts. But he went beyond third-level education. With Dr Peter Childs of Limerick University, he worked on a schools information centre on the Irish chemical industry. He was delighted when a Co Donegal school won a European award in an environmental competition.
I do not mean to imply that he existed only for his work. He was a family man. He took enormous pride in the academic successes of his wife Vi and his daughter Hazel. When his son Alex joined St Patrick's Cathedral choir as a treble and showed considerable promise, Clive's commitment was wholehearted. Parents have to be as committed as the boys. He edited the Friends of the St Patrick's Newsletter.
He was a gardener, a stamp collector, a genealogist, a man committed to the community.
When his neighbourhood was threatened by developments, Clive was instrumental in bringing local government representatives and his neighbours together to promote the public viewpoint.
In the past 10 years, he was dogged by ill-health. Any attempt to remedy things only made them worse. He met each downturn with a dignity, a bravery and a stoicism that was out of the ordinary. I have lost a very valued friend. His wife, daughter and son and the rest of the family have lost much more. T.B.H. McM.